White Mud Free Way

Item: Last Year's Junk
Author: Derek Skillings

Last Year's Junk

(2004)

Reviewed by Derek Skillings

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Label Bar/None RecordsDecapolisJune 2004

alternative country americana indie rock

White Mud Free Way's debut, Last Year's Junk sounds very familiar on its first listen. Quite a few times during the album, I felt like I was listening to a song I already had heard a hundred times before on the radio. The song I was trying to remember would just dance around on the edge of my mind before running off, never being quite able to grasp it.

Whether this was my overactive imagination or WMFW was actually taking chord progressions out of previous radio hits, I may never know. Maybe they don't even know. I have come up with a creative idea only to find out that I subconsciously ripped it off from something in my past.

WMFW is the collaboration of Terence Bernardo and Mari Solivan backed by John Hill of Dr. Israel and Shitake Monkey and Conrad Choucroun of The Damnations TX and Warren Zanes. The band took their name from a road in Canada, and I have the feeling they must really have been stretching for names if they had to settle on a free way. The music is good 'ol college rock mixed in with some country. The best way to describe the sound is very comfortable. You can fall right into it; in fact I couldn't imagine anybody hating it. But on the other hand I can't imagine anybody just loving it either. The music is just kind of there, for the most part not great, but not really bad either. There are some tracks that are better than others for instance "Adele", with the two vocalists Terence and Mari swapping verses with each other. "Near Star" is one of the better country-influenced songs with Mari taking control of the vocals for which is also probably the catchiest song.

If you are looking for an album that combines some light college rock with country, you really can't go wrong with Last Year's Junk. It will give you some good music to listen to as you sit in a cozy armchair on a rainy day reading a book about cowboys going to college.

2.5/4